I have to object to some of the things said here. It's obvious the author isn't a tablet user, or he wouldn't have said some of these things. The other's are just a lack of research on his part.

1. Talking about price. The iPad 2 was conveniently left out of the article. But at $399 for the WiFi model, and $529 for the GPS/3G model, it's a major price advantage, as in a recent survey, people said that a competing tablet would have to be $100 less than an iPad2 for them to buy it. That was right before the new iPad was announced.

2. No article that I've seen, and I'd like to see one, has blamed the A5X chip as the reason for the bigger battery. The reasons are LTE, a known battery hog, and the reason why most people with LTE phones have said they were unhappy with them, and the new screen. The technique used to increase the saturation and give a much bigger color gamut is responsible for increased battery usage, and hence, the much larger battery. This chip may consume a little bit more power, but not much.

3. The new 5mp rear camera is being praised almost universally for its much improved quality, pretty much the same chip as on the iPhone 4, which was considered to have the best picture quality of all smartphones. The lens is new, from the iPhone 4S, and the video quality has been praised too.

Perhaps the author is thinking about the front, FaceTime camera, which is still the same .3mp model from all of their mobile products.

4. Start-up times on tablets isn't really an issue, because few people actually turn them off. What tablet users do is to turn the screen off, but leave the tablet on in standby mode so they can receive notices as they come in. Comparing actual start-up times is therefor deceptive, and not very useful.

5. Screen size. This is something that people argue over. But we can't compare screen sizes without also taking into consideration the ratio of the vertical dimension to the horizontal dimension.

So, a 9.7" 4:3 ratio screen, as used in the iPad line has an actual size of 7.76":5.82". A 10.1 16:9 ratio screen has an actual size of 8.8":4.95".

Which is larger? Both, depending on how the tablet is being used. For video, the 10.1, 16:9 screen is a bit larger. Not by much, as moving the tablets back and forth by a few inches has them looking the same.

But for productivity apps, the 9.7, 4:3 screen is better.

What about area, which determines the total screen size? The 10.1" screen is 43.56 square inches.

The 9.7" screen is 45.16 square inches.

So the 9.7" screen is actually a smidgen larger. Not enough to really notice, but enough to show that a larger diagonal, when close in size, doesn't mean that the screen is actually larger.

All of these things mean something when making comparisons, and if an article gets them wrong, as this one does, then the comparison falls down by that amount, and its validity is lessened. I just don't understand why authors can't seem to get all of their facts right.

"The success or failure of Windows 8 tablets could largely be determined by app selection....Still, it's going to be difficult for Microsoft to match the vast ecosystem of apps that has grown up around the iPad."

To the extent that software suppliers port their software to the tablet friendly Metro interface, then there could be a vast app selection available for W8 tablets. The main difference to me is the price of apps, where the average price of Windows compatible software seems to be way higher than the average price of a iPad apps.

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